Book Group

 Finally, after ten months, we managed to get together for book group. 

Instead of the meeting being held at the the normal Italian bistro in the city, we moved to my local pub - a gastro pub crawling distance from the front door.

It was great to be with everybody again. The book group has been going for around 14 years, 12 in its current form, we're used to each other's presence. We've gone on holiday together, been to each other's weddings, go round for dinner with these people - and it is great. 

So once we worked out how to order sustenance at the pub - a slightly convoloted app delivering drinks and our meals in an orderly fashion, we then talked about the book of the month - Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing. Did we enjoy the book? For the most part. Some had issues with the dialogue, some an issue with the ending. But it was a nice, lighter book to end the year on. 

Then we go onto the annual even - the book choosing. The lollies were bagged, the red ups were set out and we all set about choosing our books for the year. The great thing about having to bring two books along is that you really have to thing about it - an in the 14 years the book group has been going, and in the 12 in which we've had this voting method, we've barely had a dud book. 

So this was the scene in front of me before the vote, bag of lollies at the ready, red cups on the books. I was yet to put on the rubber glove which was in the bag. The rubber gloves are normally there because the lollies are unwrapped. This year, all the lollies have a wrapper. I was a bit naughty. I originally put in a lot of redskins - I traded quite a few of them out for chocolate eclairs. There were a lot of comments about the redskins - soon to be re-named red rippers. 

The vote took about five minutes. We had to do a second vote as four books had ten lollies a piece - we voted with five lollies each, three in your first choice, two in your second. This killled the last place stale mate. 

So what are we reading for the year? See below - with the votes each book received:

Book group is one of my joys. It really is. 

Best of all - we can meet up again, in person. And along with the camraderie, the books and the friendships, most of all we can celebrate being together. 

Today's Song: